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yoram gorlizki and oleg khlevniuk
With a clear majority ending up in Stalin’s inner circle of the 1930s, it is
tempting to think of the Politburo of late 1927 as staunchly ‘Stalinist’. At this
stage, however, rank-and-file members of the Politburo still enjoyed a consid-
erable degree of latitude. Their autonomy was bolstered by the still-prevailing
norm of ‘collective leadership’ which rested on a comparatively clear-cut divi-
sion of labour within the cabinet. Apart from Stalin himself, who led the party
apparatus, Aleksei Rykov chaired the Council of People’s Commissars (Sov-
narkom, which managed the economy), and Nikolai Bukharin acted as chief
ideologist to the party. So long as no one leader fully dominated the summit
of the political system, other members of the Politburo remained more or
less free to pursue their own course. The same applied to the middle layers of
the power pyramid, the members of the Central Committee, on whose votes
much would depend in the coming power struggle.
Relatively free of constraints, members of the Politburo were allowed to
migrate from one ad hoc alignment to another, depending on the issue at
hand. The looseness of the ‘Stalinist faction’ was evident, for example, in
the summer of 1927 when the break in diplomatic relations with Britain, the
murder of the Soviet ambassador in Poland and the clampdown against the
Communists in China, placed it under enormous strain. Stalin, on vacation
in the south, received regular dispatches from Molotov on Politburo debates.
Molotov reported that one group, including those who were ostensibly Stalin’s
followers, such as Ordzhonikidze, Voroshilov and Rudzutak, had criticised the
policies being implemented in China, with Voroshilov, whowould later emerge
as one of Stalin’s most fanatical supporters, going so far as to ‘ “roundly con-
demn” [your] leadership over the last two years’.
8
Another issue on which
opinions were divided was whether Trotsky and Zinoviev should be imme-
diately expelled from the Central Committee. Some of Stalin’s allies, such
as Kalinin, Ordzhonikidze and Voroshilov, argued that the matter should be
deferred until the party congress. Stalin, still in the south, fumed at this, though
to little avail. It was only after Stalin insisted that his vote be counted in absen-
tia, and when, at the last moment, one Politburo member, Kalinin, switched
sides that, on 20 June 1927, the Politburo decided, by the slimmest of margins,
to have the two expelled.
9
The one exception to this pattern of fluid alignments was the stand taken
by Viacheslav Molotov. From his appointment as secretary of the Central
Committee in 1921, Molotov had pledged his unswerving loyalty to Stalin,
8 RGASPI f. 558,op.11,d.767, ll. 35–9, 45–8, 56–60.
9 RGASPI f. 558,op.11,d.767, ll. 35–9, 45–8; 71,op.11, ll. 13–14.
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Stalin and his circle
and for much of the 1920s he remained his only unconditional supporter
on the Politburo. This absolute allegiance would prove to be one of Stalin’s
most important assets in the struggle which unfolded in 1928, once the united
opposition of Trotsky and Zinoviev had finally been crushed, and the Politburo
‘majority’ had lost the common enemy against which it had closed ranks in
earlier years.
One fact that would play a major role in bringing the Stalinist faction into
line was a debate that emerged in 1928. Having encountered serious economic
difficulties, above all in the countryside, the Politburo adopted a series of
‘emergency measures’, which included the forced expropriation of grain from
the peasantry and the suppression of private trade. At first there were no
significant disagreements over the use of this ‘extraordinary approach’. It was
only when it became apparent that this ostensibly temporary strategy was to
be frozen into a permanent mode of government that two groups began to
form in the Politburo. The first, led by Stalin, insisted on a continuation of the
measures. The second, represented by Rykov, Bukharin and Tomskii, called
for a retreat, even if this meant granting concessions.
One of the principal reasons why the Stalin group triumphed was that their
message was more closely attuned to the sentiments of rank-and-file members
of the party. Stalin’s definition of the situation in terms of class war, and his
use of slogans such as ‘assault on the Kulak’, appealed to the mores of War
Communism which continued to carry great resonance for many Bolsheviks.
10
Stalin also possessed key organisational resources, not the least of which was
his control, as General Secretary of the Central Committee, of personnel
assignments within the party apparatus.
11
This did not mean, however, that Stalin’s victory was in any way prede-
termined. Among second-level officials on the Central Committee, as well as
among Politburo members themselves, there remained a strong willingness
to resolve the conflict amicably. Many Central Committee members feared a
large-scale conflict which might destroy the balance of power within the Polit-
buro and thereby their own ‘parliamentary’ role as the Politburo’s final court
of appeal. Even more seriously, Central Committee and Politburo members
10 See e.g. Robert C. Tucker, ‘Stalinism as Revolution from Above’, in Tucker (ed.),
Stalinism: Essays in Historical Interpretation (New York: Norton, 1977), p. 93; Hiroaki
Kuromiya, Stalin’s Industrial Revolution 1928–1932 (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1988), 109–112.
11 The classical case for what would become known as the ‘circular flow of power’ can be
found in Robert V. Daniels, The Conscience of the Revolution (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard
University Press, 1960).
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yoram gorlizki and oleg khlevniuk
recognised that a split in the cabinet would force them to take sides, and to risk
their own career in the case of defeat. Reflecting this mood, Ordzhonikidze
wrote to Rykov in November 1928: ‘I am frankly imploring you to bring about
a reconciliation between Bukharin and Stalin . . . It is laughable, of course,
to speak of your “replacement” or of Bukharin’s, or of Tomskii’s. That really
would be madness. It is true that relations between Stalin and Bukharin have
taken a turn for the worse, but we must do all we can to reconcile them. And
this can be done . . . In general, Aleksei, we must approach with inordinate
care any issues which might plunge us into a “fight”. We need the greatest
self-control not to let all this come to blows.’
12
The impetus to break this delicate equilibrium came from Stalin, who
seemed determined to force a choice on his Politburo colleagues. To this
end, he did his utmost to open up a rift within the Politburo. ‘Andreev is fully
behind the Central Committee position,’ he wrote to Molotov. ‘Tomskii, it
turns out, tried (at the plenum) to “wear him down”...butwasunable
to “lure” him’; ‘under no circumstances’, Stalin noted on another occasion,
‘should we let Tomskii (let alone anyone else) “sway” Kuibyshev or Mikoyan’.
13
It is likely that Stalin also used blackmail to firm up his alliance. In December
1928 and March 1929 the Central Control Commission received materials from
the archives of the tsarist police which showed that two current members of
the Politburo, Mikhail Kalinin and Ian Rudzutak, had years earlier betrayed
other revolutionaries. The fact that these documents, which were sufficient to
have the two expelled, or even arrested, had surfaced at the same time as the
struggle with the ‘Rightists’ was coming to a head is unlikely to have been a
matter of chance.
14
An important consequence of the victory over the ‘Rightists’ was the forma-
tion within the Politburo not simply of a majority faction, but of one relatively
unified group under Stalin. Although still a collective body, this group was no
longer an alliance of equals. It was now headed by a single leader, who had
disposed of the original cast of would-be successors to Lenin. No longer able
to manoeuvre between leadership contenders, the position of rank-and-file
members of the Politburo and of the Central Committee had been seriously
weakened. Thus, following the tumultuous policy clashes of late 1928 and early
1929, the rough balance of power at the apex of the political order, which had
persisted throughout the 1920s, was finally broken.
12 A.V. Kvashonkin et al., Sovetskoe rukovodstvo. Perepiska. 1928–1941 (Moscow: Rosspen,
1999), pp. 58–9.
13 RGASPI f. 82,op.2,d.1420, ll. 200, 220.
14 RGASPI f. 85 new acquisitions, d. 2, ll. 1–11, 28–30.
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Stalin and his circle
From oligarchy to dictatorship
With the defeat of the ‘Rightists’, Stalin’s position was strengthened. Lazar
Kaganovich, Sergei Kirov and Stanislav Kosior werenow repaid for their loyalty
to Stalin with full membership of the Politburo, while a number of others who
had supported Stalin – Andrei Andreev, Anastas Mikoyan, Grigorii Petrovskii,
Sergei Syrtsov and Vlas Chubar – had made it onto the Politburo as candidate
members. After a brief pause, Stalin continued his purge of the cabinet. In
December 1930 a former loyalist, Syrtsov, was removed from the Politburo
for vocal dissent and for his ties to another critic, the first secretary of the
Transcaucasian Regional Committee, Vissarion Lominadze, while the last
‘Rightist’, Aleksei Rykov was also expelled, and his place on the Politburo
taken by Sergo Ordzhonikidze.
Although an important staging post on the road to dictatorship, the lead-
ership system of the early 1930s is best viewed as a phase of unconsolidated
oligarchic rule. In this system, Politburo members still retained considerable
political influence. In leading a key department of government, every member
of the Politburo not only took operational decisions and controlled consider-
able resources, but formed around himself an extensive network of person-
ally devoted functionaries. While intrusions into the personal domain of a
Politburo member were possible they were, as a rule, accompanied by unholy
scandals. The significance of these Politburo ‘patrimonies’ was such that Stalin
himself would have to take them seriously.
This pattern of relationships became most fully apparent in 1931, when the
Politburo had to face up to the effects of its radical policies, which included
food shortages, housing crises, labour disturbances, deportations and rebel-
lion. The sense of deepening crisis led to very real showdownson the Politburo.
In what would become a common refrain, Stalin blamed many of the coun-
try’s woes on the shoddy work and departmental egoism of his colleagues.
Politburo members in turn resisted Stalin’s onslaught with whatever means
they had, including the threat of resignation. One of the fiercest clashes arose
in connection with orders for imported goods. Despite a steep rise in foreign
debts, the economic commissariats insisted on an increase in deliveries from
abroad. Although Stalin accused his colleagues of wrecking the state bud-
get, his demands that new orders be rescinded went unheeded. In September
1931, he finally issued an ultimatum, declaring that he would cut short his
vacation and return to Moscow for a special sitting of the Politburo.
15
Stalin’s
15 R. W. Davies et al. (eds.), The Stalin–Kaganovich Correspondence, 1931–1936 (New Haven:
Yale University Press, 2003), pp. 46–7.
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yoram gorlizki and oleg khlevniuk
manoeuvre, which resembled his tactics over the expulsion of Trotsky and
Zinoviev in 1927, was a response to the still powerful oligarchic forces which
continued to constrain him. Yet while the earlier dispute had centred on an
essentially political question, the new one – and others like it – revolved around
the economic issue of resource allocation. Battles over economic and organi-
sational questions of this kind were a typical feature of leadership debates in
the early 1930s.
The existence of such conflicts should not be confused with the view that
Stalin was surrounded by ‘radicals’ and ‘moderates’, between whose stands
the leader continuously vacillated. Certainly, recent research does not lend
much support to this position, nor to the view that there were ‘factions’ as
such in the Politburo at all in this period.
16
In fact, virtually all conflicts in the
Politburo appear to have been driven by bureaucratic interests, rather than by
questions of principle or ideology. Hence, the same member of the Politburo
could at any one time adopt a ‘moderate’ position and at others ‘radical’ ones,
depending on the particular needs and requirements of the department which
he headed.
17
In fact, most members of the Politburo were ‘moderates’ in the sense
that they had an interest in maintaining unconsolidated oligarchical rule and,
through that, preservingoverall stability within the system. The personal rights
and jurisdictions of Politburo members remained the final barrier preventing
the establishment of a full-blown personal dictatorship at the centre. Attempts
by Politburo members to preserve these oligarchic privileges added up to a
defence of a more ‘moderate’ line, marked by certain checks and balances.
We may observe this phenomenon most clearly in the conflicts which flared
up between Stalin and his long-term friend and Politburo colleague, Sergo
Ordzhonikidze.
One of the best-known leaders of the 1930s, Ordzhonikidze headed the
Commissariat of Heavy Industry, a powerful portfolio which became the insti-
tutional symbol of Soviet industrialisation. As he learned to defend the interests
of his own department and to attract qualified, enterprising managers to work
16 This view of a stand-off between ‘moderate’ members of the higher leadership (Kirov,
Kuibyshev, Ordzhonikidze) and ‘radicals’, who advocated an intensification of repression
(Molotov, Kaganovich, Ezhov) has, among other things, been used to account for one
of the most important political events of the 1930s – the murder on 1 December 1934 of
the head of the Leningrad party organisation Sergei Kirov. As a supposed ‘moderate’,
Kirov was ostensibly murdered on the orders of Stalin, who saw in Kirov a potential
competitor. While this version of events is based on indirect evidence and on memoirs,
no specific evidence of Stalin’s participation in the murder has ever surfaced.
17 See Sheila Fitzpatrick, ‘Ordzhonikidze’s Takeover of Vesenkha: A Case Study in Soviet
Bureaucratic Politics’, Soviet Studies 37, 2 (1985).
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Stalin and his circle
under him, Ordzhonikidze turned into a proponent of moderation within the
leadership. The slightest attempt to encroach on his department was warded
off, and Ordzhonikidze guarded his traditional right to ‘punish or pardon’ his
own people with great fervour. It was on these grounds that Ordzhonikidze
had regular run-ins with other leaders, most notably Stalin.
18
Their differences
reached a head in 1936, as Stalin began a sweeping purge of Soviet official-
dom which included sanctioning the arrest of Ordzhonikidze’s elder brother.
Although Ordzhonikidze put up a stout defence of his own particular patri-
mony, the scope of resistance was limited. Rather than engaging in principled
opposition, Ordzhonikidze’s main goal appears to have been to convince Stalin
to end attacks on Ordzhonikidze’s ‘own’ people. Ordzhonikidze’s eventual sui-
cide on 18 February 1937, on the eve of the Central Committee plenum which
pronounced a policy of widening repression, amounted to a last desperate act
of defiance against Stalin’s onslaught on Politburo prerogatives.
Faced with the choice of fighting for the last vestiges of collective rule or
succumbing to the shrill demands from Stalin on carrying out a mass purge,
most members of the Politburo and of the Central Committee capitulated.
19
The mass terror which followed numbered among its victims hundreds of
thousands of ordinary citizens, as well as party-state officials at all levels.
20
The epidemic of arrests and confessions opened up leads implicating those
around Stalin. For the first time in Soviet history members and candidates
of the Politburo – Kosior, Chubar, Eikhe, Rudzutak and Postyshev – were
arrested and executed. By the end of the purges, two members of the Politburo
had been executed, one, Ordzhonikidze, had committed suicide and three
candidate members had been shot. Close aides and relations of other Politburo
leaders were also defenceless against the purge. The wife of the head of state,
Mikhail Kalinin, was sent to the camps, while the case of Molotov’s wife, Polina
Zhemchuzhina, came up several times at Politburo meetings. Although she
narrowly escaped prosecution, Zhemchuzhina was dismissed as commissar of
fish industries, thereby sending a further pointed message to her husband and
his cabinet colleagues. In asserting his power to have anyone he wished fired,
prosecuted or killed, Stalin had attained the truest hallmark of a tyrant.
21
18 Oleg Khlevniuk, In Stalin’s Shadow. The Career of ‘Sergo’ Ordzhonikidze (Armonk, N.Y.:
M. E. Sharpe, 1995).
19 For a useful collection of documents on the purge of the party, see J. Arch Getty and
Oleg V. Naumov (eds.), The Road to Terror: Stalin and the Self-Destruction of the Bolsheviks,
1932–1939 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999).
20 This is discussed at greater length in Chapter 7.
21 For this view of Stalin as ‘tyrant’, see T. H. Rigby ‘Stalinism and the Mono-organisational
Society’, in Tucker, Stalinism,pp.53–76.
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yoram gorlizki and oleg khlevniuk
The late 1930s may be regarded as the high water mark of Stalin’s dictator-
ship, a fact underscored by two key developments. First, Stalin now promoted a
new cohort of junior figures who had played no role during the revolution and
owed their rise entirely to the dictator. In March 1939, following the Eighteenth
Party Congress two young Stalinists, Zhdanov and Khrushchev, were elected
as full members of the Politburo, while the new commissar of internal affairs,
Lavrentii Beria, was made a candidate member. They were joined in Febru-
ary 1941 by three other up-and-coming career administrators, Nikolai Voz-
nesenskii, Georgii Malenkov and Aleksandr Shcherbakov, who also became
candidate members. Each of these figures performed clearly designated roles.
The thirty-nine-year-old Beria had been summoned from Georgia to work
in Moscow in August 1938, when Stalin decided to appoint him, in place of
Ezhov, as commissar of internal affairs. Stalin had already formed a favourable
impression of Beria in the early 1930s. Nominating him as first secretary of the
Transcaucasian regional committee, Stalin, in a letter of 12 August 1932, had
observed: ‘Beria makes a good impression. He is a fine organiser, is business-
like, and is an able worker.’
22
In 1937, a second member of the new cohort,
Georgii Malenkov, was only thirty-five. By this time he had already served in a
number of party posts including, as of 1934, as head of the department of leading
party agencies at the Central Committee. Set up to assert control over regional
leaders, the department assumed a critical role during the purges, affording
Malenkov direct and regular access to Stalin. Following the Eighteenth Party
Congress, at which Malenkov delivered one of the major speeches, he became
a Central Committee secretary. In March 1941, a third member of this new
cohort, the thirty-seven-year-old chair of Gosplan, Nikolai Voznesenskii, was
chosen by Stalin as first deputy chair of Sovnarkom. Prior to his promotion
to Moscow, Voznesenskii had worked in Leningrad under Zhdanov, and it
is quite possible that Zhdanov had recommended Voznesenskii to Stalin. At
the same time it is clear that Stalin rated Voznesenskii highly as a specialist
and as a person who was fully committed to the Stalinist cause. In becom-
ing first deputy prime minister, Voznesenskii had, like Beria and Malenkov,
leapfrogged over a number of more senior and experienced Politburo
members.
The second measure of Stalin’s supremacy was the ease with which he
manipulated decision-making structures to suit his own needs. The years
1937–8 had witnessed the end of the ‘old’ Politburo as a collective decision-
making body. On 14 April 1937 two Politburo commissions were established
22 RGASPI f. 81,op.3,d.99, ll. 154–5.
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Stalin and his circle
for the consideration of high-level secret issues. These were then superseded
by a smaller ‘ruling group’ of the Politburo, the so-called ‘quintet’ which,
apart from Stalin, consisted of Molotov, Mikoyan, Voroshilov and Kaganovich.
While this group convened regularly in Stalin’s office, the formal Politburo,
as a collective body with well-defined procedures, ceased to function. On
17 January 1941 Stalin explained the principles behind the new arrangement:
‘We at the Central Committee have not convened a meeting of the Politburo
for four to five months now. All questions are prepared directly by Zhdanov,
Malenkov, and others at meetings with specialist colleagues and, far from
losing out, the leadership system as a whole has actually improved.’
23
A further indicator of Stalin’s new status was his own appointment as chair
of Sovnarkom in May 1941, a move which finally confirmed Stalin as absolute
leader of the country (and not simply of the party) and as successor to Lenin
(who had himself served as head of Sovnarkom). The appointment appears to
have been carefully orchestrated by Stalin. Following a succession of attacks on
the then head of Sovnarkom, Molotov, on 28 April 1941 Stalin sent members of
the higher leadership a note: ‘I think it is no longer possible to carry on “running
things” like this. I suggest we raise the matter at the Politburo.’
24
On 4 May
1941 a Politburo resolution drew up a new pecking order. In addition to having
been sacked as chair of Sovnarkom, Molotov, now a regular deputy chair, had
been overtaken by Voznesenskii, who had been made first deputy chair in
March. At the same time, in a break with existing party conventions, Zhdanov
was officially designated as Stalin’s ‘deputy’ in the party, with responsibility
for directing the work of the party apparatus.
25
With these reorganisations a new dictatorial order was consolidated. Stalin
now held the two supreme offices of the party-state and had appointed as his
first deputies not old colleagues, but new figures, Zhdanov and Voznesenskii.
The dictator was in turn supported by an informally constituted ‘ruling group’
(now expanded from the original ‘quintet’ to include recently promoted fig-
ures such as Voznesenskii, Zhdanov, Malenkov and Beria) which met at his
discretion and drew up decisions, depending on Stalin’s wishes, either in the
name of the Politburo or of Sovnarkom.
At the first session of the new bureau of Sovnarkom on 9 May 1941, Stalin
once again reminded his companions of their dependence on his good will.
Molotov, who had presented a paper on bonuses for engineers and who, as we
23 V. A. Malyshev, ‘Dnevnik narkoma’, Istochnik, 1997,no.5: 114.
24 RGASPI f. 558,op.11,d.769, ll. 176–176 ob.
25 O.V. Khlevniuk et al. (eds.), Stalinskoe Politburo v 30-e gody (Moscow: AIRO–XX, 1995),
pp. 34–5;APRFf.3,op.52,d.251, ll. 58–60.
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yoram gorlizki and oleg khlevniuk
have seen, had been Stalin’s most faithful follower, bore the brunt of Stalin’s
attack. Iakov Chadaev, who took the minutes of the meeting, recalls:
Stalin did not conceal his disapproval of Molotov. He very impatiently listened
to Molotov’s rather prolix responses to comments from members of the
bureau . . . It seemed as if Stalin was attacking Molotov as an adversary and
that he was doing so from a position of strength . . . Molotov’s breathing
began to quicken, and at times he would let out a deep sigh. He fidgeted on
his stool and murmured something to himself. By the end he could take it no
longer:
‘Easier said than done,’ Molotov pronounced in a low but cutting voice.
Stalin picked up [Molotov’s] words.
‘It has long been well known,’ said Stalin, ‘that the person who is afraid of
criticism is a coward.’
Molotov winced, but kept quiet – the other members of the Politburo sat
silently, burying their noses in the papers . . . At this meeting I was again
convinced of the power and greatness of Stalin. Stalin’s companions feared
him like the devil. They would agree with him on practically anything.
26
On the eve of war Stalin had become a fully fledged dictator. Without
concerning himself with notions of ‘collegiality’, he settled some of the most
important issues of the day single-handedly. Accordingly there is not even a
perfunctory reference in the Politburo records to the most historic decisions
of the day, such as the signing of the Nazi–Soviet pact of August 1939.Atthe
same time, it would be wrong to think that, even at this stage, all the elements
of ‘oligarchic’ leadership had vanished. Even at the height of dictatorship there
continued to exist, albeit in a weakened and attenuated form, in-built forces
pushing towards oligarchic or collegial rule. These found expression in the
relative autonomy of Politburo leaders in dealing with everyday operational
issues and in the emergence of powerful networks of patron–client relations
tying Politburo leaders to circles of dependants beneath them. This tension
between personal dictatorship and oligarchical rule would carry on into the
war period and beyond.
War years
The months leading to the war revealed the downside of Stalin’s obstinate
nature and of the highly concentrated system of decision-making he had cre-
ated. In addition to blocking much-needed reorganisations of the General
Staff, Stalin dismissed a series of detailed intelligence reports on the German
26 Chadaev, personal archive.
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Stalin and his circle
build-up for war as ‘provocations’.
27
Stalin’s state of denial reached a head on
the first day of the German attack. ‘I only saw Stalin confused once,’ Zhukov
later recalled, ‘and that was at daybreak on 22 June 1941.’
28
For most of the
first morning, Stalin still clung to the hope that this was an act of provocation
instigated by the German generals without Hitler’s knowledge or consent.
Such hope evaporated, however, with the official declaration of war by the
German ambassador, Schulenburg, later on in the morning. ‘During that first
day [Stalin] was unable to pull himself together and take hold of events,’
recounted Zhukov.
29
In the first months of the war Stalin committed a succession of blunders.
By mid-October, as the Germans approached Moscow, the leader’s confidence
had reached a low ebb. In a break with precedent, Stalin let the commander
of the Moscow front, Georgii Zhukov, have a free hand in organising the city’s
defence. Observers recall Zhukov treating Stalin brusquely and even rejecting
his advice:
[Stalin’s] eyes had lost their old steadiness; his voice lacked assurance. But I was
evenmoresurprised by Zhukov’s behaviour. He spoke in a sharp commanding
tone. It looked as if Zhukov was really the superior officer here. And Stalin
accepted this as proper. At times a kind of bafflement even crossed his face.
30
The summer and autumn of 1941 saw Stalin weaker than possibly at any
time since coming to power. Yet the vulnerability of the Soviet system in these
months meant that the ruling circle now needed Stalin more than ever. On
30 June four leaders, Molotov, Malenkov, Beria and Voroshilov, gathered in
Molotov’s office and decided to create a State Defence Committee (GKO) to
take overall command of the war effort. When the four visited Stalin at his
dacha, to which he had retreated in despair two days earlier, following the
fall of Minsk, it was to beseech him to head the new committee. Despite the
leader’s temporary fall from grace, this approach by Stalin’s deputies was not
at all surprising. After over a decade of ceaseless propaganda, the cult of Stalin
had assumed significant proportions as a popular motivator. The aura around
Stalin also served to integrate the country’s decision-making bodies and to co-
ordinate the higher ranks of leaders and decision makers. Among top officials,
27 Iurii Gor’kov, Gosudarstvennyi Komitet Oborony postanovliaet. 1941–1945. Tsifry i dokumenty
(Moscow: Olma Press, 2002), pp. 16–17, 51, 483–9, 554.
28 Georgii Zhukov, Vospominaniia i razmyshlenniia, 10th edn (Moscow: APN, 1990), vol. ii,
p. 106.
29 Ibid.
30 Colonel General P. A. Belov, cited in Seweryn Bialer (ed.), Stalin and his Generals: Soviet
Military Memoirs of World War II (London: Souvenir Press, 1970), p. 296.
255